Getting to Know... Eugene McGuinness

Photos by Barrie Thompson

After listening to Eugene McGuinness’s self-titled debut album and chatting with him for a few minutes, it becomes apparent that if the 22-year-old British singer-songwriter was an alcoholic beverage, he wouldn’t be the classic glass of black with which he shares his name and Irish heritage. However, he could easily be a Guinness Red, the cranberry-colored, slightly sweeter version of the original. Both have an undeniable richness—one from a perfect brew of barley and hops, the other from a delightful mix of dense melodies and disillusioned lyrics—but neither are too heavy or dark. Released last year in the U.K., McGuinness' debut—on which he tempers his post-adolescent angst with ragged guitar, bratty drums and jumpy vocals sparkling with youthful charm—is now available Stateside via Domino Records. He recently battled a shoddy trans-Atlantic phone connection to talk with Paste about Disney, The Doors and not being dangerous. 

Paste: Can you talk a little bit about which songs are more autobiographical and which use a little more creative license?
McGuinness: I’m not sure, really. I don’t really think of them in terms of “autobiographical” or personal sorts of things. I don’t think so. They’re all just, I don’t know, they’re just the best songs that I have at the time. The last album [2007's The Early Learnings of Eugene McGuinness EP] was a year’s worth of writing. I wrote quite a lot of songs and those 11 or 12 were just the best or they just worked the best together. People have asked me a few times if songs are personal, what songs are personal and what songs aren’t, and I don’t know. There are maybe personal moments in certain parts and there are other things that are just completely made up, completely fabricated. The truth is, most of the time, I don’t know what I’m doing on this album. That’s just the way it is, really. A lot people ask me about certain songs and go, “Well, that must be really personal,” or friends of mine think, “Oh yeah, I know what that’s about.” Well, if they do, then they know more than I do.

Paste: So you just kind of take all your life experiences and things you observe and create in your head and just put it all together?
McGuinness: Yeah. I’m not sure, really. I don’t know if I actually directly take any sort of experiences and directly put it into song. I don’t think that happens. I don’t think I’m clever enough to do that, to have any sort of plan. I think it’s just a series of happy accidents. Because there are all sorts of other songs that I write that are just horrific casualties of rubbishness. I don’t think rubbishness is a word.

Paste: When you realize you have one of those, do you just kind of throw it aside and try not to think about it again?
McGuinness: Well, I don’t know, some of them are quite funny and some are just bad in a very funny way. But yeah, I’m just glad that people just hear a certain quantity of what I make.

Paste: I feel like the lyrics of “Disneyfied” describe the difference between being optimistic and realistic and riding that line. Would you say that personally, you’re more of a realist or an optimist, and do you think it’s better to be one or the other or to strike a balance?
McGuinness: I’m not sure. I don’t know how useful being a realist is if you’re going to do something like music, if you’re going to try to be expressive. I don’t know. It has kind of negative connotations, doesn’t it, like just accepting things the way that they are, or the way that you think they are? So yeah, I suppose yeah, it’s interesting you say that song “Disneyfied” is kind of like whenever you’re completely just deluded into thinking something’s going to be a certain way, be it, like, a relationship… Even in that song, which I see is quite a negative song in a way because it talks about how things don’t turn out the way you might have initially dreamed them to be, it kind of is an exaggerated world... I think I try to make the world look more interesting than it actually is. I don’t know what I’m trying to say, really. Just the normal, everyday things, just trying to turn them into Disney films in a way.

Paste: If you absolutely had to use only one word to describe your music, what would it be?
McGuinness: Ahhh… “Flatfluma.” That can change to either marshmallow or pitchfork. Anything. Flannel. Gogool. There are a few words... It’s really difficult to come up with something other than “good” or “nice.” It’s a bore for me to say. It’d be much more interesting if I hear people describe it how they would hear it. But yeah, flatfluma.
Paste: OK. We can stick with that one, that’s fine.
McGuinness: [Laughs] Just write flatfluma down, that’s alright.

Paste: I know that asking you to pick a favorite song [of your own] is probably like asking you to choose a favorite child, but could you do it if you had to?
McGuinness: “Moscow State Circus.” That’d be my favorite.
Paste: Why is that?
McGuinness: Certain songs, I don’t really remember writing—I can’t really remember how they came about. But I remember whenever I was writing it, it was a lot of fun. It was that easy. It was easy, but I also didn’t really know what I was doing or what was going on with it. And whenever we went through a city—my brother was with me, he played on the album, and a few friends of mine—we all got in the studio and we wanted to record it live. It was only a couple days old, and I hadn’t really finished writing it. It was like a happy accident, it was a complete fluke. We didn’t know what we were doing and we went through it some times. It was just a cheesy, classic, high-five studio moment. Just one of them. But it was good. As clichéd as those sorts of moments seem to be, they’re still good when they happen... It was just a really nice surprise, and I still hear it every time I hear it. Once you press record on that, it’s always there, like a document to us just completely blagging it, just completely winging our way.

Paste: If you could only listen to album for the next month straight, what would it be?
McGuinness: If it was for the next month, it would probably be the first Doors album. The thing is, I’ve only just got into The Doors. You know, it’s like one of those things you get into—whenever you’re like 12, you listen to the Beatles, you listen to the Rolling Stones maybe, the Beach Boys. The Doors are one of them. I told all my friends, just the past week or so, “The Doors, they’re good, aren’t they?” and they’re just like, “Uh, yeah, of course.” I’ve only just discovered them. But that first album’s amazing.
Paste: I love The Doors. I’m happy with that choice.
McGuinness: “Alabama Song”—I think that’s track six on that first album—I’ve got to do a cover of that. It’s just so good.

Paste: What would you say is the most embarrassing album that you own?
McGuinness: The most embarrassing that I own? Let me think. I don’t know really—I’m not really embarrassed by anything. I’ve got to have something. Let me think. I’m in my flat at the moment. I’m just flipping through.
Paste: I feel like everyone has something that they bought when they were like 14 years old that they still pull out now and then.
McGuinness: I used to think Lenny Kravitz was pretty much like the best thing ever. I won’t say it’s embarrassing—I just don’t really listen to him anymore. Let me think. I’ve got a Police album. That’s not very cool, but they were really great, the Police, like “Roxanne” and all that. I’ve got to have something worse, though. Oh! I’ve got—Willennium!
Paste: You do?
McGuinness: Willennium.
Paste: OK, that qualifies.
McGuinness: My brother bought that for me when I was—well, it was the millennium, wasn’t it? It was 2000. How old was I? I was too old to have that. I was, like, 15. I should’ve known better. 

Paste: What are you most excited about next?
McGuinness: I did another album’s worth of recording. We did like 12 songs in four days. I’m really excited about them, so hopefully people will start hearing them around August. I think we’re just going to do downloads and eventually it’ll come out on a CD or something. But yeah, we recorded this album with my band, The Lizards. It’s really exciting. It’s the best thing I’ve done, I think.

Paste: Where did the name The Lizards come from?
McGuinness: [Laughs] I’m pretty sure there’s probably about 7,000 other bands called The Lizards. It just sounds good. Makes me sound dangerous. False advertising, really.
 

Listen to "Rings Around Rosa" from Eugene McGuinness: